Cocoa – Exploratory Kitchen

Introduction

As soon as the signs of winter begin to encroach on those hot summer days, I begin to crave hot winter drinks like tea or hot apple cider or my personal favorite, hot chocolate. Thick and velvety and as luxurious as you are willing to dress it. Add some marshmallows or whipped cream or spike it with a little brandy or amaretto. It’s hard to go wrong with this drinkable dessert.

My criteria here is a powdered mixture that melts well in hot liquid and creates a smooth and well balanced cup of hot cocoa.

Experimental Findings

Why did the first recipe not make it into “Recipes Worth Repeating” page?

My first try at hot cocoa was not bad and it’s not that I am discouraging anyone from trying it out. It makes a very decent cup of cocoa. Unfortunately, here comes the “but” – but the cocoa that this powder produces is not better than the new Swiss Miss Simply Cocoa. The addition of the chocolate makes my mixture not dissolve as well and leave a slightly gritty texture. It’s not that this mix is bad so much as it’s not better than store bought in which case I have to ask “what is the point of making your own when there is an easier, cheaper, store bought option.

Tests

Hot Cocoa Mix: Test 1 – Good enough if that’s good enough for you

Hot Cocoa Mix: Test 1

In this hot cocoa mix I aimed for a rich, lush cup of hot cocoa with the idea that adding real chocolate should improve flavor and texture. This recipe incorporates a lot of high quality bittersweet chocolate as well as cocoa to try to achieve a perfect chocolatey cup.

1½ cups cocoa powder
18 oz bittersweet chocolate (chopped fine)
2 Tbsps vanilla paste
1 tsp salt
1¼ cups confectioner’s sugar
6 cups dried milk

The cocoa powder, vanilla, and chopped chocolate were processed in batches in the food processor until it all resembled a powder. This mixture was sifter and the process repeated until everything was fine enough to go through a fine mesh sieve into a large bowl. I had no issues with this process but if your mixture starts to get sticky or your chocolate looks like it’s melting, add some of the confectioner’s sugar to keep things a nice even powder.
The other ingredients were added in and everything was whisked together.
From my testing, I found that 4 Tbsp of mixture per cup of liquid is best. A thin milk, such as nonfat milk or a milk substitute is better because it’s less heavy and less dominant in the drink. For me I used half water and half whole milk because it’s what I had in the house.

I think this resulted in a pretty decent cup of hot cocoa but it wasn’t anything to write home about. I thought that adding in real chocolate would give it a stronger chocolate flavor but in reality I found it to just add a sort of grittiness as the chocolate had trouble melting despite the effort to powder it. This recipe was good but I think I could still do better.

References

Exploratory Kitchen

Parent Notebook

Hot Cocoa Mix